Both Seneca Valley teams advance after wins at home
JACKSON TWP — Upper St. Clair was unable to take advantage of its chances, leaving the door open for Seneca Valley.
The Raiders boys soccer team exploited the opportunity, breaking open a scoreless tie with Richie Kocur's goal with 8:59 left in the game Tuesday.
SV (12-6) went on to win the WPIAL Class AAA first-round playoff 1-0 and will face Franklin Regional, a 2-0 winner over Baldwin, in the quarterfinals at a time, date and site to be determined.
In the night's first game, SV's girls withstood a late Chartiers Valley surge to win 4-3.
The only goal in the boys game came after a free kick by SV's Conor Azevedo 30 yards from the goal. The ball hit the crossbar before Kocur, a junior midfielder, slid it past USC goalkeeper Scott Matthews.
"I felt as long as we kept pushing, eventually, we'd find a way to score," said SV coach George Williams. "It looked like (USC) had scored a goal a few minutes before we did, but Justin McAtee made an amazing save. He came up with several big saves to keep us in it."
The save Williams was referring to came with 23:08 left in regulation, when USC midfielder Aashay Kumar let a shot go from 20 yards in front of SV's net.
McAtee leaped high to his left and got just enough of the ball to knock it over the crossbar to preserve the stalemate.
McAtee made eight saves, while Matthews stopped four shots, all of them coming in the second half.
"We clearly outshot them and I thought we outplayed them," said veteran Panthers coach Uwe Schneider. "But they scored the goal, we didn't, and that's the only thing that matters."Williams wasn't surprised the game remained scoreless for 71 minutes."I figured it was going to be low scoring," he said. "USC is solid all over the field and they really don't have a weak position."The Panthers' season ends with an overall record of 11-7-1.Girls Seneca Valley 4, Chartiers Valley 3The visiting Colts began and ended the game on a positive note.But in between, the Raiders offense proved to be too much.Kate Kelly scored twice while Shayna Elser and Catherine Messmer added one goal apiece for SV (17-2), which will face Peters Township, a 2-0 winner over Franklin Regional, at a time, date and site to be determined.Leading Chartiers Valley 4-1 late in the second half, the Raiders surrendered two goals in the span of 4:33 to Erin Weidl and Amanda Mazur.Both tallies came after corner kicks in SV's end."We'd been practicing corner kicks all week," said CV coach Aaron Wawrzyniak.The Colts (11-7-2) threatened again with a corner kick with one minute to play, but the Raiders successfully cleared the ball."I give a lot of credit to (Chartiers Valley's) players," said SV coach Dave Sylvester. "They showed a lot of heart."We had a few starters out late in the game and were a bit disorganized, but that's no excuse for the letdown," he added.The Colts surprised the defending WPIAL champion Raiders with a goal 2:31 into the game when Weidl beat SV's Keara Lydon.But the Raiders came right back with Kelly's first goal six minutes later off an assist from Mandy Cerminara.Her second goal came with 20:08 left in the first half and the Raiders had the lead for good.Lydon made four saves in the win.
